The Early Career Blog

Rachel Bray Whatever the job, employers have a common set of questions in mind when evaluating applicants. Are you capable of doing this job? Will you work hard? Will we work well with you and enjoy having you around? Do you share our priorities and values? Are you one of us? If you’re moving on from academia, that last question is perhaps the most critical. The good news is that employers in other sectors typically see researchers as being highly skilled in critical thinking, problem solving, independent working and project management. We know this because we ask senior managers and HR reps at our Careers Fairs what attracts them to postdoc candidates and what, if anything, might put them off. Their responses reveal certain stereotypes of academic working life that are extremely useful to bear in mind when preparing an application. Here are a few examples: “The broad analytical and managerial skills developed during an advanced research degree are very attractive to us, as are ...

Dr Steve Joy We are delighted to relaunch the Early Career Blog – with new articles and a team of new contributors! The blog has been viewed 69,002 times by readers from five continents in the space of just 4½ years. But until now, it has always had just the one author, which means, apart from anything else, that my extended spells out of the country have led to several periods of total inactivity. From today, that’s set to change: the blog is being relaunched by a team of contributors from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford – and I’ll still be here too, contributing the odd post. The team is made up of careers advisers and researcher development professionals, all experts. In fact, if you tot up our combined experience of advising PhD students and postdocs, it exceeds 45 years, so we have a decent evidence base to work from. As we make this exciting transition, I hope you’ll indulge me if I take a moment to reflect on how the blog came about, and what its ambitions are for...